


some bridges were built for burning

by extasiswings



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: (sort of), Angst, Arguing, Co-Parenting, Feelings Realization, Getting Together, Jealousy, M/M, Parenting Challenges, episode speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:36:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29783121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: “He’s a kid, I figured he would have questions.”“It’s not your place though, is it?  Because he’s notyourkid!”[Or: Eddie's dating Ana Flores.  Buck's just dating.  But when Buck oversteps with Christopher, it leads to some messy realizations and even messier conversations.  (Although...maybe some good ones too.)]
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 51
Kudos: 1080





	1. Buck

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the promo shots for 4x8 of Buck and Eddie ostensibly arguing at the airport and had...Thoughts. Don't worry, I'm going to fix it.

Eddie’s avoiding him. 

At first Buck brushed it off—Eddie wasn’t avoiding him, it was early in the morning, he needed coffee, he hadn’t slept well. It was a coincidence that Eddie was nowhere to be found as the sky shifted from hazy pre-dawn to full daylight. A coincidence that Eddie just happened to walk out of every room Buck walked into, if he was in one at all. 

A locker shut too quickly. A half-empty coffee cup left on the counter. 

By the time the first alarm of the shift goes off though, Buck’s starting to think he might have to face the inevitable.

“Where’s Eddie?” Hen asks when he climbs into the truck. “Aren’t you two usually attached at the hip?”

Buck forces a smile and shrugs. “Guess not today.”

Eddie’s the last one in. When he doesn’t give him more than a passing glance, Buck’s stomach twists. 

They make it through the morning without incident—or, rather, they make it through the morning with both of them successfully doing their jobs as Buck steals glances at Eddie every few minutes, unsuccessfully trying to get a read on him—but by the afternoon there really is no denying it. 

Eddie’s avoiding him. And Buck doesn’t have the faintest idea why. 

“Eddie—”

When they pull back into the station, Eddie’s out of the truck first and Buck blows out a frustrated breath and calls after him. He doesn’t stop, but Buck scrambles out and manages to catch up.

“You want to tell me what’s going on with you today?” He asks when he finally manages to corner him in the locker room.

“Really don’t want to talk about it right now, Buck,” Eddie replies. He seems to be looking anywhere except at Buck, his jaw tense, and Buck has never been more confused. 

“Well, we have another six hours on this shift, so…” Buck trails off and waits, but Eddie doesn’t fill the silence. Buck sighs. “Seriously, what the hell is wrong? I saw you a day and a half ago and we were fine, now you’re avoiding me and pissed off?”

“Yeah, remind me—how was watching Christopher the other day again?”

Buck pauses, feeling like he’s walking into a trap.

“It was fine?” Buck says slowly. “He was good, we had a good time.”

“Right, you said,” Eddie replies. “Neglected to mention the part where you told him I was out on a date though. Or the nice long conversation you had about it afterwards.”

And there’s the shoe dropping. Right into his stomach like a block of lead. Because, okay, yeah—maybe in the process of making conversation he had said _so, it must be kinda weird having your dad out on a date_ and instead of saying yes or no Christopher had looked up from his coloring and asked _dad’s what?_ And maybe that led to a very different conversation than Buck intended. And maybe he hadn’t mentioned it when Eddie came to pick Chris up, or afterwards, because Chris asked him not to.

...and maybe he’s just now realizing that was a big mistake.

“I didn’t know he didn’t know,” Buck says. “It’s not like it’s a secret—“

Eddie rakes a hand through his hair. He still won’t look at him.

“We’ve been on five dates—five _casual_ dates. It’s not serious—I don’t even know what it is yet—and I was going to tell him myself and answer any questions he had when it became something he needed to know about.”

Buck crosses his arms. “So it is a secret. Or was. At least from him.”

And maybe the judgment in his voice isn’t fair, maybe he’s projecting a little even though he knows that Eddie not telling Christopher he was dating and his own parents lying to him about his entire life are not remotely equatable, but it’s there in his tone and Eddie’s shoulders tense, his eyes narrowing as he finally meets Buck’s gaze.

“I don’t always tell him about absolutely everything that happens in my life immediately, especially when it doesn’t affect him,” Eddie replies, his own voice carefully even. “That doesn’t make me a bad parent.”

“I didn’t say—“

The alarm goes off and Buck swears under his breath.

Eddie brushes past him and Buck opens his mouth to call after him again. But then he closes it, swearing again as he tries to shove everything down and follows after Eddie back to the truck. 

Hen looks between them as they get back in the truck, her eyebrows shooting up as she takes in the set of Eddie’s jaw and the way he’s staring pointedly out the window. 

“Everything...okay?” She asks.

“Fine,” Buck replies, clicking his seatbelt and looking out the opposite window. 

Halfway to LAX, he decides to just apologize even if he doesn’t really understand what he’s apologizing for. But then, in the time it takes to get the rest of the way there, he talks himself out of it again. If Eddie wanted to date and hide it, that was one thing, but that didn’t mean Christopher didn’t have a right to know. Who cares that he spilled the beans a little early? If Eddie wanted him to babysit, he should have told him that he didn’t want Christopher to know why. 

Then they probably still would have fought about it, but then at least they wouldn’t be at work like this. 

They pull onto the tarmac and get out of the truck and everything is just fine until Bobby says—

“Buck, go help Eddie.” 

Eddie’s in the middle of giving a concussion check to the woman on the ground, but his shoulders tense slightly at Buck’s approach.

“How can I help?” Buck asks.

Eddie clears his throat roughly. “Can you grab that gurney, please? I’ll need help lifting her.” 

They work in silence, Eddie sliding a backboard underneath the woman—their eyes meet for a brief moment as they lift the board up to the gurney. And Buck hates it. Hates the silence, hates the avoidance, hates the distance. Normally, he wouldn’t get into this in the field, but they’re almost done anyway, so he can’t quite stop himself from saying—

“I know you’re a good dad. That wasn’t what I meant.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow and glances pointedly down at their patient and back up at him as if to say _really, you want to do this now?_

“Look, I—” Buck blows out a frustrated breath and changes his mind again. “I’m really not seeing the issue here. If you want me to apologize, I’m sorry that I brought it up when Christopher didn’t know, but—”

“That’s not even half the point, Buck,” Eddie shoots back. “You shouldn’t have been bringing it up at all.”

“He’s a kid, I figured he would have questions.”

“It’s not your place though, is it? Because he’s not _your_ kid!” 

Buck reels back like he’s been slapped. The world falls out from under him as his throat closes up, and he catches the faintest flicker of regret across Eddie’s face before he adds—

“Besides, it’s not like I’m the only one of us who’s dating. But you didn’t feel like you needed to talk to him about yourself, did you?”

Eddie’s wheeling the gurney off before Buck can untangle his tongue—or untwist his mind—enough to respond. 

Buck spends the rest of the shift in a fog replaying it all. He considers asking Eddie what exactly that last remark was supposed to mean, but he can’t get past the sick hollowed out feeling in his gut, like he’s missed several steps walking down the stairs. He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to expect—they’ve only had one major fight before, and that was during the lawsuit when Buck was fighting with everyone, and this is—

It feels even more personal than that had. 

Part of the problem is, he knows that Eddie isn’t wrong. He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. 

Christopher is Eddie’s kid. And maybe the lines have gotten blurred because Buck spends so much time with them, because he’s right there next to Eddie more often than not, helping to make dinner and playing games and helping put Chris to bed and checking his homework—

But. Christopher is Eddie’s kid. At the end of the day, that’s it. And logically, Buck knows that, so it shouldn’t sting so much to have that very real fact thrown back in his face, but...it does. 

No, he didn’t feel the need to talk to Chris about him dating because it’s a nonissue. He’s not going anywhere, it’s not going to change anything, He’s only doing it at all because—

Buck’s climbing into the jeep at the end of the shift when he has the thought, and it’s too sudden for him to cut it off the way he normally would, to shove it down and pretend it’s not grating at his insides.

He’s only dating because Eddie is. So that he has something to think about _except_ the fact that Eddie is. And the fact that he doesn’t want—

Buck blows out a breath and rakes a hand through his hair. Then, he shoves his keys in the ignition and starts off home.

(It’s easier to date than to admit that he’s jealous of Ana Flores. Because if he admits that...he doesn’t know where they go from there.)


	2. Eddie

Eddie feels like an asshole. 

He hates fighting with Buck, inevitably regrets everything he says when tensions are running high—and they had been. He’d been blindsided the night before when Christopher had stopped him before bed and asked _dad, are you dating someone?_ He’d been avoiding that conversation, hadn’t been ready to have it, hadn’t even known how to start it. And even though he stumbled through it successfully enough, he was still—

He hadn’t slept well, spending the night staring up at the ceiling stewing, uncomfortable and upset for reasons he didn’t even really understand. It was just—what the fuck? Buck can go out with whoever he wants, including apparently Taylor Kelly, and that doesn’t warrant a conversation about what that means for his own relationship with Christopher, but he felt the need to put himself in charge of talking to Chris about what Eddie dating means? 

Eddie’s not going anywhere, he’s the parent. Buck’s the one who doesn’t have to stick around, the one who can walk away whenever he wants to, who can fall in love with whoever he wants and leave—

It’s not fair. And on some level he knows that. But—what was it Buck said after everything with his parents and Maddie? That it’s easier to lash out at the people you know will forgive you? 

...yeah, it’s easier to fight with Buck than look too hard at why exactly he’s so upset at the idea of Buck not always being there. 

But after the shift, he doesn’t feel any better. He just feels like hell. And as he sits in his truck thinking more about why he hadn’t wanted to tell Christopher in the first place, he pulls out his phone and makes a call. 

It’s easy. Simple. There’s no yelling, no drama. 

He tells Ana she’s a wonderful woman—which is true—but that he’s just not in the best place to be dating—which is mostly true—and she says she completely understands and wishes him well, and that’s the end of it. 

It ends and he’s not sad—it barely even registers—which really says about all there is to say. And Eddie goes home and thinks about how the hell he’s going to fix things with Buck. 

He still doesn’t have a clear plan the next morning, but he figures starting with coffee can’t hurt. He knocks on Buck’s door just before eight—he has a key, but with everything...well it’s easier to knock.

Buck opens the door looking rough, unshaven with dark circles under his eyes, and stops. 

“Hey.”

Eddie swallows hard and holds out the coffee cup like a peace offering. 

“I broke up with Ana,” he says, and Buck takes the coffee, stepping aside to let Eddie in. 

Although, that doesn’t stop him from asking—

“Before or after you bit my head off yesterday?”

Eddie winces. “After. Last night.”

“I’m sorry,” he adds after a beat. He and Shannon never said that much, more often than not fell into the _don’t apologize, just sleep it off_ school of fighting, which rarely fixed anything, just let things get pushed down to fester until some future barb cut deep enough to uncover them again. But he wants to say it. He needs to say it. So, he does. 

Buck looks down at the coffee cup, takes a sip in the silence—then he shakes his head. 

“You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” His voice is hollow, accepting, and Eddie hates it. Because he doesn’t want to be _right_ , he doesn’t care about technicalities, about accuracy. There have been times when he’s needed to play the _I’m his parent_ card—usually when he needs his own parents to back the hell off—but it’s not something he likes to do. It’s not something he’s ever enjoyed doing.

Especially not with Buck. 

“Maybe, but—I still shouldn’t have said it like that. So. I’m sorry.” 

Buck looks at him for a moment. “I’m sorry, too,” he says finally. “Whether he knew or not, you’re right that how he feels about you dating—that’s something for the two of you to discuss and it wasn’t my place to bring it up. I overstepped.”

“I want him to be able to talk to you,” Eddie replies. “I know that there may be things that come up sometimes that he won’t want to talk to me about and I want him to be able to talk to someone he trusts if I’m not it, I just also don’t want you to feel—”

His tongue ties itself in knots as he looks away, searching for the right words, but they’re all a mess in his head and his throat, a tangled snarl of thoughts— _I’m afraid that I’ve been leaning on you too much_ feeds into _I don’t want to lose you_ which twines through _I don’t know what I’m doing_ —all too much to spit out. 

Buck has a strange look on his face when Eddie looks back.

“Obligated?” Buck fills in, and his tone is unreadable.

Eddie shrugs. “I’ve been doing this alone for a long time,” he says. _And I’m tired_ , he thinks. 

The strange look doesn’t go away—Buck’s brow furrows like he’s trying to figure out a complicated puzzle.

“You know you can trust me to stick around though...don’t you?”

“I—” It’s dangerous, the highwire he’s walking on, the thin line between _I want_ and _I shouldn’t_ , the whisper reminding him that he never gets to keep the things he wants.

“Eddie?” Buck prompts.

“I don’t expect your next serious girlfriend to be super comfortable with you helping to parent someone else’s kid, no,” Eddie admits, and waits for the other shoe to drop.

But it doesn’t.

“You’re an idiot,” Buck says. And Eddie blinks.

“What?”

“I said you’re an idiot,” he repeats. “If you think I wouldn’t pick Christopher over some random hypothetical woman—and they are all only hypothetical right now—if you think I would get serious with someone who refused to understand that you’re in my life, that he’s in my life—I—you’re an idiot. Why wouldn’t I put him first?”

“His own mother didn’t.”

“Yeah, well—I’m not Shannon,” Buck’s voice is steady, and his eyes soften as he adds— “You let me into his life. You let me be part of your family—you’re my best friend and I know I’m not his dad, but I’m not just going to walk away from that. I love—”

Eddie’s breath catches. Buck cuts off and looks away, clearing his throat.

“—Christopher,” Buck finishes. 

Eddie’s pulse is racing, blood rushes in his ears, and he tries to breathe and put his world right, return it to the balance that existed before he thought Buck was about to say—

It was a stupid thought anyway. He has no reason to think it, but he can’t stop wondering— 

“Why did you break up with Ana?” Buck asks. The question cuts through Eddie’s reverie and his throat closes for a moment. Because he’s been turning that question over in his head for hours and while the answer is simple, it also feels...messy. Especially in this moment. Like it leads down a path he’s afraid to examine too closely, a slippery slope that goes...he’s not sure where. But he owes Buck honesty, so he swallows hard and admits—

“I realized I didn’t want her to meet Christopher as my girlfriend. And I didn’t think I ever would.”

Another odd look flickers across Buck’s face.

“She seemed kind of perfect for you,” Buck says. “Pretty and smart and stable—”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “But she wasn’t what I wanted.”

“So...what do you want?”

A single word whispers through his mind, catches in his throat. And maybe he is an idiot, because he can be brave when it comes to any number of other things—running into burning buildings or downed helicopters, scaling walls and talking down impersonators who steal firetrucks—and yet, when it comes to this—

“I—”

Buck sets the coffee down and takes a step forward, then another, closing the distance until he’s close enough to touch, until Eddie can feel the heat of him. 

“What do you want?” Buck repeats quietly, his gaze searching, and Eddie still can’t manage to make the words come. But something flickers in Buck’s eyes before they settle on resolve and he nods.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Buck laughs and Eddie doesn’t have a chance to ask why before he’s being kissed. 

_Oh._

And words may be difficult, but that he can do. 

“For the record,” Buck says when he pulls back. “I don’t want to date anyone but you.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” Eddie replies, and pulls him down to kiss him again.

When they tell Christopher, they tell him together.


End file.
